


The Stag, the Wolf, and the Dragon

by Zeal_Ambition_Steel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Abduction, Angst, Battle, Battle of the Trident, Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Historical Fantasy, One-Sided Relationship, POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Possessive Behavior, Revenge, Rivalry, Ruby Ford, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:59:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeal_Ambition_Steel/pseuds/Zeal_Ambition_Steel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robert reveled in smashing Rhaegar's chest in with his hammer, but the smile Lyanna wore in death caved his own in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Stag, the Wolf, and the Dragon

Robert was sidling left, right, bent over his hammer, horns jutting from his helmet, Rhaegar a ruby-encrusted fiend in black armor, Targaryen scum. "Winter is coming," Ned's house always said, then why didn't Lyanna just come? 

The men all stood still as scarecrows, watching with their beady little scarecrow eyes, why did they not fight, why did they not rally to their beloved cause against the Mad King Aerys II? 

"Fight, will you!" Robert bellowed to them, hammer raised, "FIGHT!" The men did not move, staring across the river at their foes, horses fidgeting, hooves clapping at the loose soil by the ford. 

"They shall not," Rhaegar announced. "They are interested as to who will emerge the victor of this long-awaited battle, Robert Baratheon, usurper." His face does not contort, it does not move, no, it remains in that calm cast of black metal, as impenetrable and as reflective as his famed armor. His face is an armor, Robert decides as he twirls his hammer in his hands. Rhaegar may have unsaddled him, but his horse remains in the ranks, awaiting him. Robert plans to seat himself again. He plans to be the victor. 

"Then come for me like death," Robert snarls. "Come for me, and we shall see who lives. You'll find yourself fit to serve on the wall in your black armor…and with the manner in which you wrested Lyanna Stark, my beloved, of her virtue, you will be lucky to live!" roars Robert. "AND THAT IS IF I PERMIT YOU TO LIVE!" 

"Heady talk of victory you make," Rhaegar remarks dryly, flipping his visor down, concealing the man inside ever further, the haunted, insufferable monster, the beast who claimed what is rightfully Robert's. "But victory is often empty, like the words of a nobleman." Rhaegar draws his sword, and his horse stands on its hind legs, mighty and black and in that moment Rhaegar looks like a king, a storm of fire raining down and burning the fields, a shining emblem of the dragons long since past, slain by his forefathers, a hero, a martyr, a power. And Robert wants all of it—but most of all, he wants what's his, the girl draped in robes of ice and steel much like Rhaegar's face and heart, the girl who takes after winter in her cold stares and her frosty complexion and the way she gleams like ice. 

Rhaegar's horse whinnies as it returns to all fours, and Rhaegar's horse charges, water exploding about the horse's hooves that beat like war drums in the night, war is coming, fire is coming, the beast is coming. Robert waits before he opens his mouth and howls like the wolf of the North, side-stepping the horse and bashing his hammer into its sternum. The horse screams as it falls, and Rhaegar leaps from the horse before water engulfs his steed. Rhaegar stands before Robert, hand clutched about his sword of burning metal, glaring under the light of fire and sun. 

Robert goes forth, hammer raised to the height of his brow, sweat beading upon his face like the water that swallowed Rhaegar's horse whole, and Robert's drowning under his helmet, but he's going to slaughter Rhaegar where he stands, like the horse Robert just felled with one mighty swing. Rhaegar dodges a blow, slicing into the vulnerable flesh of his shoulder. Robert inhales sharply, lurching aside, hammer slipping through his fingers as he crumbles towards the water, but he straightens, stands tall like the stags before him. A stag must defeat a dragon on this day, a stag must pierce the dragon's underbelly with sharp and deadly…antlers. Robert stops thinking, because he's never been much of a savant. No, he is meant for glory in battle, and on this day, the stag will prove more valiant than any dragon. 

Robert shifts the weight of his hammer to his good arm, and this time, he waits for Rhaegar to attack. Rhaegar does not assail him with all the vigorous energy of a younger man. Rhaegar pauses to circle Robert, coiling circles around the shaking stag whom he means to devour, fangs piercing him like the sword in Rhaegar's clenched fist. Rhaegar's royal purple eyes assess him, and Robert is certain that Rhaegar's mind is lazily drawing up maps of his weaknesses, his flaws, his stature. Robert lashes out at him again, and Rhaegar easily evades Robert's hammer, which plunges through the water. Robert lifts it and swings. Rhaegar stumbles back. There. This is his moment. Robert maneuvers his hammer straight up into the air and it comes crashing down in an arc, right into Rhaegar's breastplate. Rhaegar falls, and Robert grins. So the dragon is not invincible. 

But the dragon rises again, and thrusts his blade forward, and Robert's hammer knocks it aside and Rhaegar continues his offense, slamming iron-clad knuckles against Robert's helmet. Robert loses his footing in the uneven bedding below the water's shallow depths, and Rhaegar raises his sword once more. Robert, crouching beneath a vertical swing, knows his moment again. All the battles he has ever blazed through have led to this one split second, and Robert rises, quicker than Rhaegar's elbows can follow his sword, and Robert's hammer follows his leap into Rhaegar's chest. The armor is dented upon the impact, a loud clattering sound shattering the silence. Rhaegar falls, the rubies scattering to the water. Rhaegar is sputtering, and the dragon tries to tend to its sounds, talons clutched to its belly, but Robert does not allow it this decency as he tears the helmet from Rhaegar's face to view the frightened look of his fallen enemy. 

Rhaegar's face is writhing in agony, his breaths shallowing, but his face takes on a stern, unyielding quality that Robert hates more than anything, so he takes off his own helmet, tosses it aside. He stares down at Rhaegar, and he kneels to give Rhaegar the small mercy of drowning him. Rhaegar dies in a gurgle of desperate bubbles, and Robert cannot wipe the rictus of victory from his snide and unrepentant mouth. 

"THE DRAGON IS DEAD!" He yells, and a cheer like a crushing blow erupts into the air, birds fly from the trees, and Rhaegar's men cower in the face of Robert's triumphant smile. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was not until he had sacked King's Landing that he learned of Lyanna's fate. The woman whom thousands had perished for, the woman whose salvation Robert had ultimately sought, was dead like so many others of Robert's kin. The smile of victory from his face had faded upon seeing her own smile branded to her face in death. Those pale lips were forever fixed into a smile so peaceful one might think she died in the arms of a lover. Rhaegar won this contest. He and Lyanna were united again in death. Robert might as well have been struck by his own hammer, the way his chest plummeted at this thought. Lyanna was smiling, and Robert's own smile dissolved. 

But in the end, Robert knows to this day that he loves her more than Rhaegar ever could, and so he takes consolation in that, because Lyanna knows from the heavens, and Rhaegar knows from hell. The lovers might be dead, but they are still apart, and Robert takes a special glee in that thought. Lyanna will await him, and Robert will go to her, fight more wars than he can count on his hands to reach her. Lyanna belongs to him, not Rhaegar Targaryen, and so he will fight until he joins her.


End file.
